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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24883624">This is (NOT) Goodbye</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wix/pseuds/Wix'>Wix</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Break Up, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Sokovia Accords, Steve's Letter to Tony Post-Civil War (Movie), not team Cap friendly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:27:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,958</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24883624</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wix/pseuds/Wix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's been waiting for Tony's response to his letter for long enough. He's more than ready to know where they stand in the aftermath of the Civil War and Zemo's revelation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1631</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Marvelous Marvel, Team Iron Man/Anti Steve, Teamtonystark1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>This is (NOT) Goodbye</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I had some time and just typed this up real fast. :-) Hope you enjoy it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He ends up waiting just a week for a response. Just a week wherein he’s only been able to take in information about the outside world and about Tony’s recovery from Siberia through news broadcasts and Pepper interviews. He knows that Tony’s left the hospital at this time, and has already been speaking with Secretary Ross and the Accord’s Council for the things that will come next. T’Challa’s told him that they’re welcome to stay in Wakanda for a while, but to realize that with each passing day more and more decisions are being made that he has no say or control over.</p><p>That that’s the price for the safety of his team. That that’s the price for them being out of the spotlight. The lack of voice in what comes next. Handing it all over to Tony who is singularly the only one that the world need contend with now that Steve Rogers and his team have fallen from grace.</p><p>Honestly, Steve’s not too worried about it. Tony will get it all well in hand just like he always does and now that Bucky’s out of the picture and no longer being hunted or in danger from outside forces, Steve’s not actually all that worried about leaving it to the brunet to handle. He’s more concerned with other things, like Bucky’s decision to go back into Cryo and Wanda’s concern about her relationship with Vision and Clint’s concerns about his family back home and Scott’s uncertainty about what his part in this chaos means for him and his daughter. Sometimes he thinks Tony has the easy part of all of this now. None of it is personal to him, it’s just business as usual. Dealing with the media and the courts is something that the billionaire could do in his sleep.</p><p>He waits for a bit, uncertain if Tony’s received his letter or if he’s going to reply when the letter finally comes, being hand delivered by King T’Challa himself and Steve’s a conflicted mess of emotions as its laid in his hands. He holds it tightly even as it feels a little like Schrodinger’s letter – either it’s a bomb about to go off in his face or it’s an apology from the brunet for his part in all of this and an offer for Steve and him to start over and pick up all the pieces once more. Steve figures that the letter will remain in that kind of agonizing limbo of uncertainty until he finally makes the inevitable move of opening it and reading it to actually see what Tony’s got to say in response to Steve’s apology.</p><p>Despite what Sam thinks, the letter wasn’t actually hard to write. Once Steve had made the decision to write it and sat down with the pen in hand, the words had practically come pouring out of him. Being written out on the page with an eloquence that Steve knew Tony would appreciate. Not just that, but Tony always did find it charming whenever Steve did anything ‘old timey’ and sending him a handwritten letter undoubtedly falls under that marking. The letter had been an obvious choice though, as it felt more personal than a text or an email did.</p><p>Steve felt that Tony deserved a more personal touch after everything that just went down.</p><p>Clint and Wanda disagree anytime Steve mentions any allowances for the billionaire. They seem determined that Steve’s leniency towards Tony in the past has led to the situation they’re in today and sometimes Steve sits in the lounge with them and actually <em>listens</em> to what they’re saying and he has to wonder when they all became so tense that such vitriol was so easily spoken and agreed upon. Sure, he knows that things haven’t always been perfect. Clint and Tony have never fully gotten along as any overture by the brunet tends to deal with his surplus of money and Clint’s background as a poor kid just rankles at it and feels that it’s necessary to let Tony know about it each and every single time while still taking the gifts from the brunet like his due for putting up with Tony. Wanda and Tony have never gotten along and it had caused enough issues for all of them until Tony had decided in a rare display of absolute maturity to take one for the team and move out of the Compound and remain away from team events in order to give the young girl her space.</p><p>These days though, with the benefit of hindsight, Steve wonders if he should have stepped in at that point and made Tony stay at the Compound with them. If he should have tried to find a different workaround for the problem other than just ‘out of sight, out of mind’. He thinks that it might have been the start of their downfall, the start of everything going wrong. He thinks that it’s entirely possible that none of this would have come around if outside forces hadn’t seen what all of the Avengers had been blind to – that there was an obvious fissure that had developed between them all after Ultron.</p><p>Looking back Steve sees it now. The fissure was created when Tony moved out. It grew when he stopped coming around. It grew when Steve kept him out of the search for Bucky. It grew when the ‘date night face times’ came less and less frequently because Steve was more and more busy. It came when Tony stopped talking to Steve about his days or about his concerns. It grew when Tony stopped trying to talk to any of them at all about anything.</p><p>Steve should have recognized the weakness those simple shifts eventually led to. Of course the enemy would know to attack. What better time was there then when Tony was unsure of his place amongst the team and when he was feeling the weight of the world and didn’t know what to do with it? When he forgot that they were here for him and ready to take those burdens before they crushed him to dust. If it had been like back during the SHIELD/Hydra fiasco, then none of this would have come to pass. Tony would have booted these people back into the shadows before Steve and the rest of them even knew that they existed.</p><p>Instead he hadn’t. Instead he’d sided with them against his team.</p><p>Steve can see where the missteps were now. It was in all of those times that Tony offered his help and Steve turned him away. It was in how the calls to the brunet started shifting from lengthy ‘check in calls’ to short ‘we need more money’ calls. It was in how as more and more time passed Steve had become more and more focused on the task at hand and less and less aware or concerned about Tony back home. Tony must have felt it, must have misread the situation as being one where Steve cared less about him and Steve hadn’t been given the chance to prove him wrong because he hadn’t known that he needed to.</p><p>It’s a weakness of Steve’s. That kind of single-minded focus and intensity on the problem right in front of him. Sometimes to the detriment of other things. That’s why he’s always needed a Bucky or a Peggy or a Howard or a Tony at his side; that kind of powerhouse personality that was willing to smack him upside the head and make him take a step back.</p><p>…but with the Civil War Tony had tried to do that, and Steve hadn’t listened. Worse, he’d led the others to not listen and to actively distrust the brunet so as to serve his goal of saving Bucky. Even worse than that…. he’d let them to attack Tony right out. To use the weapons that Tony had made to keep them safe and turn them against their creator. It was possibly the cruelest thing that Steve had ever done to Tony in all their years of knowing each other. They all knew how personally Tony took how his creations were being used these days, so when they turned against him with them…did he think of Stane? At the airport did the image of that giant mock-Iron Man suit made from his own designs with a face inside that he’d once loved and trusted above all others pop into his mind? Did he feel like he was back in that nightmare? Had Steve put him back in it because of his need to keep Tony blind to the truth he was hiding?</p><p>Because if he were completely honest, this whole mess was never about the Accords. It was always about Bucky. About protecting Bucky and seeing him again and shielding him from harm and saving him like he hadn’t managed before.</p><p>It was about keeping Tony from Bucky. About keeping Tony in the dark to the secrets that Steve and the team had kept from him over all these years.</p><p>Zemo had hit the nail right on the head when he’d revealed the truth that had driven them all to that point and inwardly Steve hates him more than he hates Zola or the Red Skull. How would have things been different if that little piece of information had never come out? Tony had bent, he had relented and had come to back Steve in Steve’s mission despite any risks to himself and his image. Steve had been grateful, and then everything had gone wrong.</p><p>He hadn’t meant for the situation to get as far out of hand as it did, but this was Bucky. Bucky, his first love. Bucky, the man that had protected Steve when Steve had been too fragile and too weak to protect himself. Bucky, who had stood at his side as they grew up together, as they went onto the battlefield together as they hid inside tents and had to keep silent around a world that hated them for what they felt for the other. Bucky, who had fallen because Steve hadn’t caught him. Bucky, who had been tortured and twisted around because Steve never came for him….and Tony was threatening Bucky in that moment. Steve doesn’t know how to say that what happened wasn’t Tony’s fault, it wasn’t Steve’s fault it was just…it was a whole bunch of regrets and fears and nightmares coming out to the surface and Tony had been the one to trigger their release.</p><p>He holds the letter in his hands as he sits on his bed with the door closed to the outside world. This is the moment he’s been both dreading and hoping for and it’s about to come to an end. The note in his hands is either Tony telling him to go fuck himself, or telling him that he still loves him. Steve’s hoping with everything inside of him that it’s the second one, but the possibility of the first one is far too high to be ignored. There is a chance though, a chance that Tony recognizes that what they had is worth these kinds of setbacks and worth fighting for no matter what trials might have come their way or might still come their way in the future. Eventually though, the limbo becomes too heavy to keep existing in and he gently opens up the letter and pulls it out to read.</p><p>
  <em>Steve. </em>
</p><p>Steve tries to read into that simple opening. Just one word and yet it doesn’t give him any hints about what’s to follow. Is it fond? Is it exasperated? Is it exhausted?</p><p>
  <em>I got your letter, as shown by this response. I figured that a match of energy and method were reasonable and that there were only two things that I wished to express to you and I figure that a letter can get those across as well as any other medium. At the very least it gives me the same cathartic relief that I’m guessing you must have gotten from your letter once you wrote it all down so here I go. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>First things first, your letter. The absolute lack of understanding of reality that went into it was almost impressive to read if it weren’t so insulting. The Avengers are my family? Maybe more than yours? Are you serious with that statement? Basic math will show you wrong and I know that you at least know how to count using your fingers and toes so there’s no excuse for that. </em>
</p><p>That’s not entirely what Steve meant when he said that, and honestly it was more of an attempt to remind Tony that he was still a part of them and to remember that going forward. Sure, the majority of the group was with him but they wouldn’t have even managed to be a group without Tony’s help and Steve wanted him to know that.</p><p>
  <em>I have long since known that the Avengers favored you and didn’t even barely tolerate me except for the money and toys and get out of jail free cards I brought with me. There was never a more obvious expression of that then the time after Ultron and in the ‘Civil War’ itself. I have been preyed upon by each of them in turn: Clint and Nat through SHIELD and continued manipulations afterwards, Wanda through her powers, Thor through his physical assaults that none of you stepped in for which is why I held no hope of any of you stepping in for Wanda’s continued assaults after Ultron and chose to just get out. Banner’s friendliness when it came to the toys I could give but when asked to interact with me or care for five seconds about my state he ‘didn’t have the temperament’ to put up with any of it. Once I’d honestly thought that the only one who hadn’t preyed upon me was you. And you loved the Avengers because they were your friends and so I provided for them for you. All for you. Who was Sam to me? Why would I have allowed his theft of my property if not to cover your ass? So that you would be happy. Why would I not fund all of your little excursions to go find Bucky Barnes since I knew how much it meant to you? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>But then I learned the truth, and nothing is more painful than to realize that the person you thought was above all of that was actually the worst offender of them all. </em>
</p><p>Steve’s still holding out hope that this letter turns around, even with the less than stellar start. He can understand Tony wanting to get this off his chest and to let it air out, so he doesn’t begrudge him in the least for it as he skims down to the bottom. Just because Tony felt like he needed to say it doesn’t mean that Steve wants to read how Tony’s convinced himself that Steve’s betrayed him in some way. He’s not sure if he can handle reading that insanity. He hasn’t betrayed him; it was all just so complicated, but it wasn’t a betrayal. Not really.</p><p>
  <em>The second, and final thing that I wish to express is that I think that it’s time that I let you go. </em>
</p><p>That single line punches the air out of Steve’s chest and he grips the paper tighter.</p><p>
  <em>It’s been more than clear for some time that you wish to go and I have held on out of a kind of foolish nostalgia for days long past. I think that it’s time to recognize this for what it is, and for what it is not. So this is me doing what I should have done years ago, the first time I realized that I was more in love with the memories of your potential than I was with the man in front of me. So I’m cutting the chord. Turning off the life support. I’m letting any and all feelings for you die. </em>
</p><p>He wants to rage at those words, to call Tony up immediately and demand that he take it back. That putting this down just to hurt Steve with it was not what they needed right now. They needed to show each other forgiveness. To understand that people are fallible and make mistakes and move past it. That they shouldn’t do whatever this was. This cruel ‘cutting the chord’ nonsense.</p><p>
  <em>Don’t bother sending any texts or calls to that phone as I’ve already handed it over to the proper authorities. I’m not interested in keeping any open channels between us and I’m certainly not interested in catering to your ego by letting you believe even for one second that I would ever need <span class="u">you</span> to come save <span class="u">me.</span></em>
</p><p>
  <em>This is me, wrapping it all up and saying that this is the end of the road. It’s been an interesting ride, and not a particularly good one; but this is me getting off now once and for all. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>This is me saying goodbye. </em>
</p><p>He doesn’t even sign it at the end and Steve wants to pull his hair out and break something and yell, but at the same time he wants to put his head in his hands and cry. All while feeling the desperate urge to storm the Compound and confront Tony, to pull him in and hold him no matter what and to never let him go.</p><p>“Steve man, is everything okay?” Sam’s voice comes from the newly opened door and Steve looks up from the letter in his hands and feels the tears in his eyes that he refuses to let fall.</p><p>This isn’t goodbye. He won’t let it be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please no comments of a negative or critiquing nature. Thank you for your understanding. </p><p>(Also, I'm uncertain at this time if this will have a continuation but <b>please</b> do not press for one in the comments as it stresses me out when people start demanding or pressing for more than what I have already given. Thank you!)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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